ANYONE who has been in or even near Glasgow lately cannot fail to have noticed the frantic efforts under way to tart the place up in time for next year's Commonwealth Games.

Suddenly, ramshackle city centre buildings that have been an eyesore for years - the appalling view of Cathedral Street and Queen Street Station that has greeted visitors when they emerge from Buchanan Galleries car park, the wall-to-wall litter, the smashed, pot-holed road junctions - all are the subject of fevered repairs.

Despite the many moans from loyal, taxpaying citizens over the decades, it has taken the Games and the prospect of being judged by tens of thousands of foreign visitors to shake Glasgow's leaders out of their sloth and tidy the place up, or at least those bits likely to be seen by sports fans, their families and Commonwealth dignitaries.

Many of us ask why the work could not have been carried out before, but the answer is that there would have been little in it for those who loll about the City Chambers.

Undoubtedly, it is a Herculean task, made worse by years of neglect of the infrastructure when some senior councillors preferred spending millions on ludicrous - now thankfully ditched - schemes to rejuvenate George Square, or, in at least one case, indulging in recreational drugs while the rest of us toiled day in, day out, to earn our keep.

It is, if you like, an allegory for yesterday's Scottish Budget delivered by Finance Secretary John Swinney. The moment has come when the Nationalist administration has had to stand up and be counted.

No longer can Mr Swinney, and his leader, Alex Salmond, buy off the Scottish electorate with more "freebies" - the free prescriptions, free tuition, free care for the old, a freeze on council tax - that have kept them in power since 2007. No longer can Messrs Swinney and Salmond rely on a non-stop series of populist gifts to keep the voters happy.

This was a Budget for independence - extremely cautious, a dollop of political opportunism over the Spare Room Subsidy, any blame to be laid at the feet of the UK Government and a few tweaks with the smoke and mirrors.

Reality has kicked in. Scots are not fools, and it was time for a Budget that reflected, more or less, what actually goes on in the world, not yet another cynical bundle of promised delights that will emerge at some unspecified date in the future.

Mr Swinney's announcements yesterday did indeed amount to a "Budget for independence", as it has been called - although no longer by the Nationalists - but it is one that is already being dissected and costed, as he knew it would, by his opponents and, importantly, all those unsentimental, non-partisan economists, of whom the wily Scottish voter is beginning to take a lot more notice.

Mr Swinney's spending plans take us through the next two financial years, well past the referendum, so it had to be as transparent as possible. On the one hand, Captain Sensible was at pains to paint a picture of a sober, responsible government capable of running a separate Scotland for which Scots might vote next autumn.

On the other hand, any suspicion that he was cooking the books to make his and Mr Salmond's dream more likely, and the voter would turn away in disgust. Mind you, this pair must be the only people left in Scotland who really believe that free care for the elderly, as the public have been allowed to understand the idea, is financially sustainable.

Or that there isn't going to be an almighty clash some time in the future between the councils, still robbed of their annual tax rises, and Holyrood. Or that most of us won't regard his determination to get rid of the bedroom tax - more accurately the Spare Room Subsidy - is sheer opportunism which would heave the onus back onto the councils and, of course, cannot ever be achieved unless independence is won.

And, while we're on the subject, why shouldn't people in receipt of subsidised public housing not be persuaded to live in flats and houses adequate for their needs and release housing with extra room for those families who really need them? ONE sop was an increase in funding for colleges but... wait a moment, how exactly could it be an increase when it was merely an increase over an even greater cut imposed in the recent past by, yes, the SNP? Perhaps I was wrong in saying that Messrs Swinney and Salmond could be relied upon not to bring out the smoke and mirrors this time.

There wasn't much for the all-important business sector, despite Mr Salmond's past efforts to make it appear he was business friendly. Business rates will go up, and at a time when governments everywhere are trying to make life easier for the wealth creators.

All in all, it was a Budget about not very much - no hostages to fortune, for the time being at least, and more to grumble about than sharply criticise, but the grumbles can always be redirected towards Westminster.

This was a Budget for independence - extremely cautious, a dollop of political opportunism over the Spare Room Subsidy, any blame to be laid at the feet of the UK Government and a few tweaks with the smoke and mirrors.

Whether it will persuade the referendum waverers of Mr Swinney's capability of running an independent country remains doubtful. Just as no one will be convinced of Glasgow councillors' determination to continue cleaning up Scotland's largest city after the Commonwealth Games are over, done and forgotten.